Braden Russell

Chief Technology Officer at Bugcrowd

Newport Beach, California, United States

About Braden Russell

Braden Russell is Chief Technology Officer at Bugcrowd. Location: Newport Beach, California, United States.

I've spent 20+ years doing one thing: making the hardest problems in cybersecurity solvable at scale. Today, as CTO & CPO at Bugcrowd, I lead the platform engineering and product strategy behind the world's most powerful offensive security marketplace — connecting enterprises with a global community of ethical hackers to find vulnerabilities faster, cheaper, and more comprehensively than any traditional approach. We're redefining what it means to be proactive and preemptive about security in an AI-accelerated threat landscape. Before Bugcrowd, I built and led engineering orgs at CrowdStrike, Cylance, McAfee, Foundstone and Boldend — companies that didn't just compete in cybersecurity, they wrote its playbook. At each stop, I joined with a mandate to scale: scale the product, scale the team, scale the architecture. I've taken platforms from early-stage to enterprise-grade, led zero-to-one product development, and navigated the unique pressure of hypergrowth — where everything you build today becomes tomorrow's technical debt if you're not disciplined. What separates good technology leadership from transformational leadership? I believe it's the ability to build engineering cultures that attract exceptional people, make hard tradeoffs visible, and ship products customers love. Key outcomes I've driven: → Architected AI-native automation layer reducing customer time-to-triage by 60%+ → Scaled engineering orgs from single-digit to 300+ while maintaining velocity and culture → Led platform migrations to cloud-native, microservices architectures during hypergrowth → Delivered AI and ML-powered product features that became core revenue drivers I'm always interested in conversations at the intersection of security, AI, and product — whether that's advising founders, exploring board seats, or connecting with operators building something audacious.

Skills

  • M&A Due Diligence
  • Go-to-Market Strategy
  • Executive Leadership

Additional experience

  • CTO, Falcon Platform & Next-Gen SIEM

    CrowdStrike

    September 2022 – June 2024

Education

  • MBA, Pepperdine Graziadio Business School
  • BS, UC Irvine